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What I cannot understand is, if these guys are so sure about Unicode and SLS 1134, why they waste their time in this forum arguing with you people.

Why they have to sell Unicode/SLS 1134 so hard if that is the only solution, as they claim?

The problem is what Sri Lanka registered with Unicode was a limited set of Sinhala characters.

The first person in Sri Lanka who made a Sinhala font is Mr Ravi Peiris now at Ingrin

Since there is no set of full Sinhala characters registered either in SLSI or in Unicode the software developers are deprived to make any software for sinhala.

Only I have done and published this document with code points. Since this was done by me in private capacity I do have the copyrights and a patent is pending.

The code points which are outside the unicode registered area is kept under a blanket called a “UNION” and this list was never published. The content in this “union” differ from one font maker to the other.

As I have previously mentioned in 178
Quote
Only a part is registered balance kept inside a unpublished “union”. Who ever hid these codepoints may had a commercial venure –a monopoly — in the mind or deprive the people in lanka of Sinhala IT education. IT only open for the english speaking group.
Unquote

Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo

[quote]
The best people to answer would be people from ANCL, Wijeya, and Upali where there are 2 people from these organizations who were in the Unicode Task Team if am not mistaken. So they should come and highlight why the papers are not Unicode complaint yet.
[unquote]

Yes, the best person to answer this question is Mr. Naveendra Gunaratne from Wijeya Newspapers, who was in the original Sinhala fonts task team and left thoroughly disappointed, because his concerns were never taken seriously by Gihan, Dino and the rest of the team, who had their own agendas. (The ANCL man was only a puppet.)

However, I do not see any logical reason why any newspaper company should shift to Unicode compatible platform.

As I said before, if the Unicode supporters want to make Unicode Sinhala, a standard they should first have enough applications to attract users. As long as they do not, the newspapers will use what will bring them better results. The business leaders take decisions based on market.

Newspapers do not use Oracle or Linux. All they wanted is good font sets to be used in the publishing environment and perhaps relevant applications.

You cannot force anybody to use Unicode compatible Sinhala fonts sets, if that does not given any advantage over the rest. You cannot hold a gun at the head of a press baron and threaten him to use Unicode.

Finally, have you seen anywhere that VISTA will support Sinhala? I have not and given what had happened in the past, I have strong doubts about that.

Why you always aviod the question. Just going round and round.I have never said UNICODE is wrong but what you registered with unicode consortium is incomplete Sinhala. The whole problem is this.

This was pointed out by me and the Sri Lanka association of Printers on the public hearing. 20 odd group incl VKS over ruled us and registered the incomplete set of Sinhala in the UNICODE.(SLSI1134)

We do have a problem in implementing Sinhala

Please confirm whther you have a hidden “union” of character table apart from the few characters registered in the unicode = Slsi1134.

“yes” or “no”

Even Harsula avoid this question. This was posted last week.(160 and 163 )
Linux group have proved that there is a”union” .

Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo

I think I have mentioned this in one of my earlier posts. (which is not visible now, beleive it’s archived)

The ideal situation for all of us should have been Standard been established long time ago, and technical implementations of the same happened at that time so by now all of us use standardized sinhala on whatever platform each of us use. If somone either Donald, JC, University or a consortium established the Sinhala standard at that time we will not have these arguments (with technical implementations). I am not in a position to answer the delays behind Sinhala standardization.

Let me repeat this again I am not defending anyone or any masters as we dont work for anyone. But we followed the Sinhala Unicode and technically implemented it for various use of Sinhala in MS & Mobile Platforms. Same thing I beleive people like Linux, MS, IBM, Orcale will be doing.

The technical implementation of finalized unicode standard was started about 1 – 1/2 years ago, if am not mistaken so it will take some time to see all these things in place in the marketplace. Windows will support this in Vista, Linux already supports, Oracle supports Sinhala Unicode and so does many other technical implementations. Win XP supports Sinhala Unicode through an enabling pack however the best implementation for MS will arrive with VISTA.

I think the big mistake ICTA is doing is sleeping rather than coming out and showcasing these solutions to what’s available to general public. If they organize a forum and mini-exhibition to showcase all Sinhala Unicode compliant products/services including emailing among platforms, cut & paste to what not, we can invite all these forum members to showcase the same. Perhaps the same forum can be used to arrange a debate/questioning about the Unicode!

Newspapers
————-
The best people to answer would be people from ANCL, Wijeya, and Upali where there are 2 people from these organizations who were in the Unicode Task Team if am not mistaken. So they should come and highlight why the papers are not Unicode complaint yet. I dont see an issue but beleive it’s all internal matters which they among themselves needs to finalize.

Dharma for you to see respective Sinhala Unicode based websites in your PC without downloading, you may have to wait for VISTA where you upgrade to it. Even if another standard get’s established there is no way it will just get established in your PC magically. It applies to JC, Donald and whowever who builds another standard, font or way of working in Sinhala. That too has to be technically accomplished.

Finally, if it was Donald’s standard which is been accepted by ALL (MS, Linux, Oracle, Googls to local acedamia and private software companies to government) sometime ago we would have implemented the same. But everyone agreed and accepted to work on Sinhala Unicode (SLSI1134) hence we too have established the same to ensure inter operability and also since it’s feasible to technically implement.

Jehan hope you are satisfied with the answers

One can twist and turn words When truth get exposed it hurts!!!

Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo

I write just to clarify this matter only.

After he got angry and walk way from this meeting — what he spoke to the people around ICTA is byond me — Later the people around him and the university students may have nick named him.

These events are byond my control and I have no reponsibility.

Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo

Harshula,

The Plain text (you meant this by Simple text, right?) question is really a good one.
For those who do not know what Plain Text is, it is the text typed inside Notepad or a text editor that does not do any formatting. So, you choose the font, its style (bold, italic etc) and size and type the text. If you change the font half way of typing, the entire text takes on that font and any associated attributes.

Romanized Sinhala is sitting at Latin-1. That means if you display it in Latin alphabetic characters, you would be able to read it in romanized Sinhala. If you change the font to one that that has Sinhala characters for Latin-1 as the one we developed, the Sinhala script shows.

If you intermix English and Sinhala as follows, it will show in Latin like this (the second line is romanized Sinhala).
English
Síhala

Same as a file like this:
English
Français

Or,
English
Deutsch

If you change the font to a font like the ugly one we made, it would be like this in Sinhala:
====================================
Line one:
Hal nayanna, hal gayanna, liyanna, hal sayanna, hal hayanna
Line two:
[the word Sinhala in Sinhala characters]

But good Sir, who wants to write English and Sinhala in Notepad? It is just a note, right?

However, I can mail this through ANY intermediary device on the Internet and rest assured that it will be received intact at the other end to be viewed in whatever the font the recipient wishes to use. Anything that complies with RFC822 will take it and forward it without trying to fix it.

How about trying the same thing in Unicode?

Well, I tried it.
1. Start Notepad
2. Type English
3. ALT-Shift
4. Type Sinhala
5. Change font to E_Sinhala1 or E_Sinhala2 that I use to read web sites
6. Result is garbage for both lines
7. Change font to Arial or Times new Roman
8. The Sinhala is now a row of rectangles
9. Save
10. Hit cancel to the warning that it cannot be simply saved (?)
11. Select Unicode file type
12. Alt-Shift to type the name in Latin-1
13. Save
No more a Plain text file as I knew. So many complications.

The explanation is simple. The Unicode font (Iskoola Pota) has Latin characters at Latin-1 blocks. That is not formatting. It is just that the font has two areas for two scripts. The font we did for romanized Sinhala has Sinhala at Latin-1 blocks. It could have Sinhala at Unicode Sinhala block too but what for?

Notepad is not where we do formatting it is in other apps like MS Word or Open Office. This is where the big corporations are trying to put brakes on us. Granted, that they can buy the whole island and smile with million dollar smiles. We should not give in. Don’t you think?

Recall what the venerable Monk said. It was so easy to write in the Notepad IN SINHALA! Then he copied it to an email message and sent it away. Which was received by me. It looked very similar to anglicizing but without killing the language. I copied it out to Notepad, changed to the Sinhala font and voilà! I saw it in Sinhala script. (Actually, I have one Notepad file open with the Sinhala font always on my desktop that I use for writing and reading Sinhala script).

Harshula,

I’ll reply the Thai question here and write on the Plain text case in another note.

You are right that there is a Unicode block for Thai. But That’s the beginning and end of it. The Thais don’t care. The whole point is, Thais say that they want to place their code points at UTF-7, and very well do it. They are a sovereign government. They cite the reason — MIME compatibility. This is exactly we want for Sinhala AND Tamil too. And it can be done.

Unicode or ISO said you can’t do it because you have non-spacing characters. This is the ploy they use against Indic too. However, Thais continue with their national standard and telling the software companies to comply. (I verified this at the Thai wat nearby where I service the computers.)

Unicode and ISO are American and European companies, not governments or UN agencies.

Please read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIS_620
They use code points U 00A1 to U 00FB. This is Latin-1!

As you will see, the Unicode block and TIS-620 can go back and forth by simple arithmetic. We have top engineers in our country who can device two sets the same way. If you need help we will do it for you. (We know you are very busy especially to tell the software companies that you changed your mind. It’s hard for us too, but has to be done for POSTERITY).

The bottom line is what we decide now determines the destiny of the people. please think of it. Those who want their favorite Unicode block they can have that and those of us who have slightly different use for Sinhala would have it at Latin-1. How about a compromise (similar to Thai)?

=================
Hello,

I have been trying to post a message to:
http://www.lirneasia.net/2006/05/standardizing-sinhala-for-it/
Even having tried two different PCs one running Windows XP and another running Windows 98, I am not able to upload the post. I see others posting without a problem. I am in the US.

Why?

-

The “Yakshaya” part came on the first meeting.
Dr Gihan wanted a word from us to show in his computer with his system
I told to type “Yakshaya” into the note pad and copy and paste it to another application
The word “Yakshaya” what he typed into the note pad was not the “Yakshaya” apperaed on the second application.
In this meeting even he failed with the word “Yakshaya” he never got angry. He said it was a bug.(wow)

In the second meeting still he had no solution for “Yakshaya”. (after several months) He got angry and walk away embrassing Manju. Not only because of “Yakshaya” but due to other facts.Unfortunately I have not taken any notes.

These meeting was not on invitation form ICTA but by requested appointments with Manju.
Technically during the time we made objections to the SLSI 1134.

Instead of “Yakshaya” why not try “Rajapaksha” and see the results yourself Jehan. Hopefully someone will have to do a demonstration to the President. This was one of the visuals I planned for the Sirasa TV debate.

Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo

According to what we heard from various people, you had been invited by ICTA for a presentation on your solution but you called Dr. Gihan Dias, a reputed IT guru a “Yakshaya” and he had left the meeting. Is this true? This must be one reason nobody wants to work with you. Correct me if I am wrong. It is true that Gihan or Prof didnt do justice for public funds but you need to be more diplomatic than you are to win your arguement and convince “intellectuals.”